Open for research; some materials restricted because of fragile condition; digital
surrogates are available.

Processed by:

Richard Workman, 2013

Biographical Sketch

Daniel Catán was born April 3, 1949, in Mexico City. He owed his early
interest in music to his parents: his mother encouraged him to take piano lessons,
and his father was an enthusiastic admirer of popular music, particularly Cuban
sones.

At the age of 14, Catán was enrolled in boarding school in England. He
continued his studies in that country, receiving degrees in philosophy from the
University of Sussex and in music from the University of Southampton. He then moved
to the United States and in 1977 earned his doctorate in composition from Princeton
University, where he studied under Milton Babbitt.

Following graduation, Catán returned to Mexico City, where he worked as a
music administrator at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. During this period he founded
and conducted the Camerata de la Nueva España, a chamber orchestra that
gave concerts in Mexico City, including the premiere of his chamber opera,

Encuentro en el ocaso, in 1980.

While he continued to write chamber works and orchestral and vocal pieces, opera
steadily drew more and more of his creative energies. His second opera, based on an
adaptation by Octavio Paz of the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story,

Rappaccini's Daughter, was La hija de Rappaccini, which premiered in 1991 in Mexico City. After a
disappointing reception by critics, the work gained new appreciation when Paz won
the Nobel Prize for literature, and a subsequent production in San Diego,
California, brought Catán increasing visibility.

His next opera,

Florencia en el Amazonas, was
commissioned jointly by Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Seattle Opera,
and premiered in Houston in 1996 to critical and popular acclaim. Houston also
premiered Salsipuedes: A Tale of Love, War, and
Anchovies in 2004. This was followed by the highly successful Il postino, based on the 1994 film of the same name
directed by Michael Radford. The first performance was by Los Angeles Opera. The
role of Pablo Neruda was written for and created by tenor Plácido
Domingo.

Catán died suddenly on April 8, 2011, in Austin, Texas, where he was serving
as composer in residence at the Butler School of Music of the University of Texas at
Austin. At the time of his death he was working on a commission from the university
to write a new opera based on the 1941 Frank Capra film,

The papers cover the entirety of Catán's professional career, from the
period when he returned to Mexico after receiving his PhD until his death; however,
the archive is not complete. For example, there are no materials relating to
Catán's personal life and there is almost no correspondence. Also missing
are the scores of a number of his smaller compositions such as his chamber works,
his score for the film

I'm Losing You, his
work-related diaries, materials prepared for his published collections of essays,
and the score for his last, uncompleted opera, Meet John
Doe.

Series I. Musical Works is the largest portion of the archive and fills 18 oversize
boxes. It is divided into two subseries: A. Operas, 1979-2010, undated; and B. Other
Musical Works, 1975-2007, undated. Within each subseries works are arranged in
alphabetical order and within each title, insofar as possible, manuscripts are
arranged chronologically. This arrangement has been made difficult by the fact that
Catán almost never dated any of his manuscripts; internal evidence, such as
the sequence in which corrections have been made to scores, has been used where
dates are lacking. Dates following the titles of works are the dates given in the
catalog of his works by his publisher G. Schirmer Inc./Associated Music Publishers,
in

Grove Music Online, and in Catán's own
list of his compositions found in the folder titled Curriculum.

Throughout this finding aid, the following terminology has been used. Vocal score refers to a score showing all vocal
lines, but with the accompaniment arranged for keyboard. A close score is a score giving all the parts on a
minimum number of staves, normally two, as with hymns. Condensed score refers to a score giving only the principal musical
parts on a minimum number of staves generally organized by instrumental
sections.

There are a very small number of notes to and from Catán, mostly concerning
the preparation of scores or the production of his operas. These have been left in
place and are not indexed.

Subseries A. Operas contains material related to the composition of Catán's
five completed operas. Catán frequently used sticky notes and flags to call
attention to the locations of corrections in successive versions of his opera
scores. For preservation reasons, these have been removed from his manuscripts.
Where any of these tags bore writing, it has been photocopied in place and the
photocopy inserted before the original manuscript page.

Subseries B. Other Musical Works contains the scores of his non-operatic output. Many
of these scores are represented only as photocopies of the original manuscripts. Due
to the age and condition of these photocopies, and the fact that the toner used has
in some cases turned sticky over time, some portions of these scores have been
interleaved to prevent pages from adhering together. Also, many of these scores were
originally bound using plastic comb or coil bindings. Over time, many of these
bindings have broken or deteriorated to the point where they were potentially
harmful to the manuscripts. To better preserve the scores, these bindings, as well
as any paper envelopes or ring binders that contained scores, have been removed;
where the original cover bore any writing, a photocopy has been inserted in its
place.

Series II. Career-Related Materials contains 7 boxes of awards, certificates,
clippings, a diploma, posters, printouts of web pages, programs, scrapbooks, and
serial publications. Much of this material arrived in file folders individually
labeled. It is not certain that Catán had any part in arranging or labeling
these folders, but their organization has been preserved, as have the folder titles,
which are shown in single quotes.

Because the folder titles do not always clearly identify the contents, the following
notes may be helpful. Basic Set contains materials
relating to the first performance of

Florencia en el
Amazonas. Curriculum contains a
biographical sketch and list of Catán's compositions. Florencia also contains materials relating to Salsipuedes and other works. IInd Round Reviews relates to the revival of Florencia en el Amazonas in Houston in 2004. Journals refers to periodicals, not to diaries. Visita Baja California refers to a stint teaching
orchestration at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in 1997. There
is a great deal of overlap among the folders, with the same printed material often
appearing in more than one file.

Photographs primarily document the staging of his operas

La
hija de Rappaccini and Florencia en el
Amazonas, but there are also photographs of mostly unidentified groups
of people.

The material cataloged as Scrapbooks consists of
five albums containing clippings, copies of concert programs, and some photographs.
Because these albums employed a system of adhesive-coated pages with clear plastic
overlays that has deteriorated over time, the albums are fragile, and consequently
their use requires permission from a curator. The albums have been digitized and
printouts are available for viewing.

Two unmarked published scores of Catán's composition

Florencia en el Amazonas: Orchestral Suite based on the Opera, and one
of Encantamiento have been transferred to the Ransom
Center Library.

A silver medal presented to Catán by the Academia Medalla Mozart in 2009 was
transferred to the Center's Personal Effects holdings.

Digital media, including CD-ROMs and DVDs containing digital photographs of costume
and production designs, and PDF and SIB (the format of the music notation software
Sibelius) files of opera scores, have been transferred to the Center's Electronic
Records Collection.

Unpublished DVDs containing video recordings of opera performances were transferred
to the Film Collection.

CD-ROMs and DVDs containing unpublished audio recordings of various rehearsals and
performances of Catán's operas and other compositions as well as a 2004
interview in Spanish and English were transferred to the Sound Collection.